Relief was the first feeling I experienced. I was relieved that my new doctor did not follow the other doctor’s lead and try to tell me that antidepressants would fix everything.

After leaving the office I then felt confused. I didn’t really understand what it was I actually had and what it meant. I just knew that my doctor’s attitude toward me had just changed in an instant and I felt like asking “who’s cat died?”. It was an eerie feeling.

Then I became panicked because I realized it was more serious than I ever thought, by the way the dr was acting, and I was alone and uneducated.

Oh, it was so long ago I don’t remember what I thought. I was undoubtedly brain fogged anyway. But I do know in the following two years that I went through the classic stages of:
1. Denial
2. Anger/Resentment
3. Acceptance

Shocked was my first feeling. Disbelief…. how could I have cancer? Are you sure?
Then extreme sadness… I am a mom of 3 young children and this really can’t be happening. Angry because it has affected my life. Frightenend of what’s to come and how I will deal with it and stay strong for my kids. Still frightenend after treatment of what may show up on future tests.

You know I felt calm and confident, a little confused.
I got so LITTLE info, My Dr didnt even NAME the disease. It was like ” You have a condtion where your immune system is attacking your thyroid, I am prescribing this__” That it, the end. I felt like I would take this synthroid and everything would be perfect and fine and back to normal!! The shock and awe came later.

I was totally SPEECHLESS. My guard never ever went down with any doctors as I prepared myself for the…you are fat, lazy and just a hypochondriac….take better care of yourself song and dance but this one was different then all of the rest.

Then I felt RELIEVED because she explained what my unmedicated journey was like for the past ten years without ever seeing me before and explained what to expect from my body from here on out.

Finally, I was ELATED because this was the first doctor in over ten years who finally gave my suffering a name, Hashimoto’s Autoimmune Thyroiditis and I could finally move forward with proper treatment……

Thanks to just one doctor, I am a new woman who will educate every doctor and every sufferer until Hashimoto’s is never ever mistaken for depression, laziness or just fat again!!!

First, I was relieved, because my mother had thyroid cancer and if they told me the nodule was benign, it would’ve felt like a ticking cancer time bomb, since they aren’t likely to remove a 5mm nodule. Also, I’d been feeling hypo for about a year, despite my TSH being within normal limits, and couldn’t figure out why–at least now they’ll keep me slightly hyper after the bugger’s taken out and nuked. *It wasn’t all in my head.*

Second, I felt elated/happy that I was finally not going to have to worry about my thyroid anymore, since it will be gone soon and also that we caught it so early because I had finally gotten fed up with my doctor ignoring my complaints and switched doctors. (During the intake, the new doctor asked if I’d ever had a thyroid ultrasound as a baseline, since both my parents had nodules removed and mom’s was malignant. I got the ultrasound, which showed a nodule and the new doctor ordered a biopsy to be safe, since I have a strong family history of thyroid disease.)

Third, I felt shocked, like someone smacked into me and time stopped. I always feel this way when I hit a crossroads/life-changing event, like starting labor or when my husband asked me for a divorce.

Just as a postscript, my primary emotion since then has been sadness with occasional twinges of fear and dread. I’m so sad for my thyroid–it really tried its hardest, but the DNA was against it. Now I’m going to rip it out and nuke it and banish every last cell–poor thing. =(

For the Hashimoto’s – Relief that it wasn’t precancerous (boy was I wrong), then confused because I had no clue what it meant, and then frustration because I had a doctor who wanted to follow the sit and wait policy most doctors follow.

For the cancer (see I told you I was wrong to feel relief) – fear followed by anxiety (to be expected when you are told you have cancer) followed by anger at everyone who told me I should be glad it wasn’t a brain tumor (yes, my father actually said that to me) or that I got the “good” cancer.

I’d had a miserable summer in 2002 when my heart was racing, my appetite was out of control but I was too weak and shaky to cook enough food to stop my guts from being eaten from the inside out. I was so dizzy I couldn’t walk across the room without gravity pulling me down to my knees. I’d eat a steak or a hamburger patty and a baked potato, but couple of hours I’d be starving again. I was frantic.\

Having just been diagnosed with celiac disease, I was stressed, exhausted and paranoid of not having enough to eat. I wouldn’t leave my house without a candy or protein bar in my purse.

My next door neighbor had a daughter and husband with thyroid disease, she gave me a book about thyroid disease which fit me to a tee. I was relieved to find so many of my symptoms listed and to hear how my doctor wasn’t likely to be knowledgable about my problem and to keep seeking help. Because my GP was worse than worthless. Even when I’d been hospitalized for a heart rate of 140 and severe anxiety, she kept saying it was unlikely I had Graves’ disease. The heart doctor said I didn’t look like I had Graves’ disease because my eyes weren’t bugging out. (Only 25% of Graves’ patients get proptosis) She had me on beta blockers only, to calm my heartbeat, but the rest of me was absolutely miserable.

I finally asked for a referral to an endocrinologist. She was glad to get rid of me and my harping to get this or that test done. Unfortunately, the first endo in that office misread my TSH test and told me I was getting better. I was confounded because I felt even worse. I asked for a copy and found that my TSH was unmeasurable (it was <.04-…where the old lab had me at <.0001) The twit didn't realize they both meant the same thing but were from two different labs.

I called his office and asked for a different doc. This time I got the head of the research department at Eastern Virginia Medical School and she took one look at my test, excused herself and stomped out of the office. She came back a few minutes later, red-faced. I'm sure she yelled at the first idiot.

So, I felt vindicated and relieved that I was finally going to get some attention to my problem. After an ultra sound and a RAI Uptake test, she told me I had Graves' disease. Seven years later, when I got my thyroid removed, I found out I also had a very entangled mass growing backwards that proved Hashimoto's disease.